Illiud Latine Dici Non Potest
by Lithey
Summary: Kikuchi, a boy who has recently become infamous for collecting lovers. Yoshikawa, who didn't really need more complications in his life. And finally, Latin, the subject in which he desperately needs tutoring. (KY; shounen-ai)
1. Chapter 1

Illiud Latine Dici Non Potest. (You can't say that in Latin.)

----

"I can sleep with you, if you allow it, but there's not a chance of it concluding in a serious relationship." 

Cue the incredulous dot dot dot. 

Kikuchi continued, unperturbed by his companion's silence. "You're a nice person, though." 

"...Thanks." Ah, the dry, often monosyllabic reply that the other party always hopes to pass off as unaffected. 

He moves on with his speech, making it mechanic enough so that only the truly desperate would try to believe him. "I mean it, it's likely that a lot of guys would fall in love with you." Careful now, not _too_ sincere. 

"I appreciate the compliments, really." A safe, caustic answer. An emphatic show of Attitude. Overall, though, it didn't deviate very much from the usual. 

Kikuchi hated this part of dating. He disliked every second of having to debrief his selected partner for the night, having to discuss and arrange what would become of the affair. But then, he could be mean, or he could be downright callous and pretend to love them. Really, the process of clearing things up was clearly the lesser of two evils, and obviously the more tedious method. 

He told them in no unclear terms that he preferred it unattached, free from the binding hold that the significant would otherwise have on your pituitary gland. Free from explanation and analysis. Just free. 

And that's what he was, since he and Kanzaki broke up. 

Free to stop trying to justify themselves to one another. Free to stop playing who loves who the most. Free to try and get Saeko into bed. 

Of which Kikuchi didn't seem to be having much success. "So, are you leaving with me?" he asked the girl across the table. 

Saeko looked past infuriated, but he could tell that she was trying to hold it in. He didn't know what she wanted out of it - never really cared to wonder what the other person could possibly want from an encounter with him, the physical reasons aside. For all he knew, she wanted to compare notes with her friends. Maybe girls actually bragged about this in their locker rooms, and their mysterious privacy was naught but a myth. This could be the stuff of slumber parties. 

Girls were familiar territory to Kikuchi, but unfortunately, the one theme he was accustomed to was their ambiguity. He always had to tread cautiously and be attentive, difficult to read. He didn't know who to take face-value. It was why he went out with guys from time to time. It required less multitasking when it came to them. Usually he'd find an interested one from some university or the other, and the linear approach works fine on them, because it's much easier to detect boys who are in it with no thoughts of commitment. When they say it, they actually mean it. 

He designed a different approach for girls - it wasn't exactly all the more gentle, but considerably more thorough. That way, he'd only get one of two responses that are apt to be completely honest. One of them would be a yes - said with varying levels of confidence, but with full knowledge of what she would get herself into. The other answer is often expressed more accurately, a resolute rejection, usually followed by telling him to stick it into one orifice or another. 

Saeko, as he predicted, was inclined to the latter answer. "Leaving with you? Are you sure your place has enough space to accommodate me as well as your ego?" She stood up abruptly, fists clenched by her sides. "Only a moron would go out with you!" 

He was tempted to reply, "That's not a nice thing to say about your friends." Instead, he just shrugged, hoping this would blow off by tomorrow. She was rude, but she's a classmate, after all. 

Kikuchi got up and left, feeling the kind of tired that wasn't felt by the body. "See you." 

---- 

"I'm home!" Noboru Yoshikawa called out, as per tradition, as he strolled into his house. After waiting in vain for the advent of a reply, he added softly to himself, "For whatever it's worth..." 

If his sister were at home, these four walls should be on the receiving end of noise much more substantial than Yoshikawa's soft and - if you listen closely - dejected footsteps. But luck would have it that she was off somewhere else, with someone else, and very likely thinking about something else. It would be like her to do this, to be deliberately missing during the exact hour he needed to talk to her. However, Yoshikawa, being Yoshikawa, didn't begrudge her for it. 

It did depress him, though, and Yoshikawa felt all his emotions thoroughly. He felt the familiar urge to spend time in front of some pixilated characters until an actual human being stepped into his line of vision. Video games were a way to fill up his senses with other emotions to feel, emotions from an entirely different world that he could experience but wouldn't upset him. But it wasn't nine o'clock, meaning he wouldn't yet be able to use his PlayStation as a medium of release. Takayuki's one stipulation since she's moved back to the house was that Yoshikawa be mindful of their electricity bill. He gave himself a strict schedule and he was determined to uphold it. 

Looking back to when the sentence - er, schedule - was first implemented, he remembered eerily resembling a former drug addict experiencing severe withdrawal. The twitches and bloodshot eyes eventually left Yoshikawa, replaced by a look of an accepting sort of longing. He's been surviving in this manner for awhile now... He was impressed with how long it's been. He tried to recall the date when Takayuki moved in. It had been just a week before his mother died, so that would mean his sister flew back to Japan barely five months ago. 

That had been a particularly tumultuous time, and nobody was in any position to console anyone else. 

Anko had gotten into a fight with her entire family that year, and anyone she talked to would receive an earful of her strategy to escape her house. Yoshikawa remembered that it would always begin with her giving condolences, and end up with a lengthy discussion of why she wished she could bury _her_ mother. There was also the fuss over Kikuchi and Kanzaki's break-up still not dying down, which made it all the more impossible for Yoshikawa to approach either of them. The other students who, while tolerant of the self-pity permeating throughout the classroom, weren't eager to butt into anyone's private pains. Especially not during those particularly volatile times. Between slipping grades and the instability of the class since Onizuka left them, there wasn't enough room for reaching out to anyone. All Yoshikawa had to live by during those days were e-mails from his former teacher and Yuuki. The latter, however, was much more infrequent with communication, having been relocated and asked to take resolute heed of their anonymity. 

He'd printed out practically every one of Onizuka's letters - the longer ones, at least. He reread them by the day - by the hour, if needed. Fulfilling a request, he showed them to Fuyutsuki one time. When she returned them, she was blushing and apologizing all the while, saying she couldn't help it... It was placed on Yoshikawa's desk, covered with markings to correct Onizuka's miserable kanji. 

That memory was enough to get Yoshikawa to pull out his "Onizuka pile", which he kept in an easily accessible drawer. He knew his sister would have to arrive before he finished going through all the letters. It wasn't long before he was laughing at the words as they formed into shapes in his imagination, despite the fact that he could probably already recite a few of them by heart. 

Time passed by under the influence of Onizuka's action-packed letters, and soon Takayuki was greeting her brother as her image produced a swiftly-moving blur across the house. 

"Welcome home." Yoshikawa tidied the Onizuka pile and stashed them away for future use. Considerably brighter, he helped his sister with the packages she was carrying. "You brought home a load. You bought all this?" 

"Well, you know... For the wedding." Takayuki smiled at her brother, weakly. 

"Oh." Yoshikawa joined her in emptying the bags and placing the contents on the counter. 

Takayuki hastily gave him an explanation, never mind that it wasn't asked for. "Well, not the wedding per se, but the party before the wedding... It's going to be on Saturday. Ha-kun will be arriving here by then. Poor guy, won't be getting any rest. That's an eight-hour flight." 

"Um... Takayuki. You're going to introduce me to him soon... Don't you remember his full name yet?" 

"You know, that's really the least of our problems, little guy. I mean, I haven't seen him in four months-" 

"Five." 

"Five? Has it been that long?" Takayuki shrugged. "Fine, five then. Wow. That's almost as long as the time we actually spent together." 

"I thought you guys met on April? Wouldn't that make it four months?" 

The taller, disgruntled sibling decided to shake her head and put the topic to sleep. "Noboru, I know you don't have a life, but are you usually so painstaking about my relationships?" 

"I should hope not," Yoshikawa replied with a chuckle. "But you are, you know... marrying this one." 

"As if you're the one who's been taking care of me since we were little." And so she felt the need to remind him again. "As I recall, you were helpless without me. I swear, I don't know how you survived mom when I left the house. Don't get me wrong, I think you ended up a bit more pathetic than you should have, considering you're related to me... But in the end you're not such a disaster, after all. I hope you learned a bit from when I was standing up for you." 

"You still are, standing up for me," Yoshikawa said, almost as if he were accusing her. "Really, it's embarrassing when you go bullying the teachers at my school. Mother would never do such things..." 

"Mother had no spine when dealing with anyone except you." Takayuki gave him her best superior, disapproving look. "You let anyone and everyone walk all over you. I should've never left you in the first place. I did for a few months, and now look at you, keeping tabs on my relationship with Ha-kun. Thinking you're the man." 

Yoshikawa pondered. "What? Do all girls talk like this? Or do you just happen to share a brain with Anko?" A moment's silence to perish the thought. "Anyway, I have to warn you. There's something you need to know and you're going to like it maybe even less than I do." 

"You shaving your head for military school next year?" 

"Uh. No." With knitted eyebrows to complete the baffled look. "I'm not, uh, going to military school." 

"Really? I thought you might as well, because you seem awfully bent on flunking all your subjects." 

Yoshikawa smiled sheepishly. "...Ehe. So, you heard?" 

Takayuki took his hand in hers, with more gentleness than she's ever possessed in her entire lifetime. "I'm not going to scold you because you're not doing so well in school... I mean, I've never been the best student, myself, let alone a good one. And, besides, it's just the beginning of the school year, right? You can make up for it. And you have to." Her voice edged on desperate. 

"I know, I know..." The boy bit his lip, feeling a sense of contrition. "I tried, and I kept asking people for help. But... I'm just no good at this." 

"Alright, first of all, you have to stop selling yourself short if you have any plans of succeeding." Takayuki's hands were no longer softly atop her brother's, now they were latched quite firmly on his shoulders, with the grip that she assumed exuded the confidence of an army general. "You just need the proper motivation. Just keep in mind: the two of us lying in the gutter, homeless, starved, and being eaten alive by house flies. Think of that. Then think: if only you could've gotten good grades on your last year of high school, then maybe - just _maybe_ - you could have gotten that scholarship to that awesome university and you would've landed yourself in some hotshot job and-" 

"Or I could drop out of high school and get a less flashy job, one that could sustain us anyway." 

Takayuki looked appalled at the idea of the bare necessities. "Unheard of. No. In fact, you are to study right after we eat. Which we will do right after I make dinner. Which I will do while you wait with your little video game. So go have fun. Now." 

Yoshikawa glanced at the clock. "It's not nine yet." 

"Look at you, able to tell the time. If that's not the most important requirement of a top-notcher, I don't know what is." Takayuki gave him a kiss on the cheek, much to every little brother's dismay. "Run along and play. Get the recreation out of your system now, because you are going to do some serious grinding later. That would be the books, you dirty-minded boy, the books." 

---- 

"Welcome back," Murai warbled slowly. He turned and saw that it was Kikuchi. "Oh, it's you. What are you doing here?" 

"Well, as far as I recall, I live here." It should have come with a scowl. Kikuchi could do snarky like a professional. Instead, he was friendly, if a bit condescending. That was how he usually was as far as Murai was concerned. 

The bleach blond returned to doing his homework. "Ha, ha and ha. So how did Saeko dump your ass?" 

"Something along the lines of not willing to play my game, or being disgusted with me... I don't think we were on the same wavelength." Kikuchi rolled his eyes with little disappointment. "Don't they understand by now? Or do they honestly think they'll 'change' me? It's all very simple, really... I never asked for salvation, did I? Tell me, is there something written on my face, something like 'HELP ME' in big, bold letters? I'm thinking it's a vibe I put off..." 

"Hardly," Murai reassured him, a wry expression on his face. "They're just not with the program. Er... hey, in the Mathematics homework... Are you sure it's page one oh three, 'cause I don't remember discussing how to do this thing here..." 

Kikuchi ignored Mister Subtlety trying to get his notably smarter friend to cooperate and help finish his assignment. "I should come with a contract. And a fine print. Then they'll sign it and have to accept that I'm not up for relinquishing my wicked, dastardly ways. Hah." 

Murai decided to rush the conversation along, still hoping against hope that Kikuchi would buckle this time and give him a hand. "I saw it coming, you know. Aizawa confided in Fujiyoshi that Saeko was out to get revenge in Chikako's name. Now, really, about this problem. When did they teach this to us...?" 

"Please tell me you aren't serious. Do you guys have some Love Mafia going on?" 

"'Love Mafia'," Murai repeated quizzically. "Sounds like one of Tomoko's dramas..." 

"Oh, and I'm chauvinistic. Saeko mentioned that, too; what was _that_ about?" Kikuchi didn't sound the least bit insulted, not to Murai. He even seemed to be enjoying talking about how he was slighted. "I don't objectify anyone, I'm perfectly aware that they're human. Who wants to have sex with objects, anyway? And if she must insist that I objectify girls, she should believe that I objectify guys, besides. It works both ways, so she has no right to defend herself like that. She can't unleash her feminist dignity on me." 

"Just because you swing both ways doesn't mean you still don't treat girls like shit." Oops, not the proper way to suck up when one wants a little homework help. Murai's tactics quickly underwent a drastic face-lift. "I get your point, though. You treat everyone the same. You wouldn't even give any friend of yours any tips in Math, despite the fact that he does not remember taking up a single thing in this goddamn book..." Ahem, ahem. 

"I don't treat everyone the same. I'm shitty to shitty people. I treat girls perfectly well, and some guys, too." Satisfied, Kikuchi finally headed to his room. The prospect of going to bed and getting some rest had apparently put Kikuchi in a good mood. Before closing his door, he decided to give Murai one very helpful tip. "I believe the teacher would more likely credit you if you answered the Mathematics book, not the Physics one." 

Murai looked at the cover of the book he'd been holding, turned scarlet with embarrassment as well as fury, and swore he could hear Kikuchi laughing inside his bedroom. 

---- 

"I am beyond worrying for you, just so you know." 

Kanzaki didn't mind that she was talking to herself, addressing an ex-boyfriend, and climbing the creepy stairs just so she could reach the chilly rooftop. She was just pissed that she felt the need to check up on Kikuchi... if indeed it was him. 

She'd stayed very late in school to help a teacher with the lesson plan. He was an aging man, but relatively new to Tokyo Kisshou Academy. He approached her after classes, in this somehow endearingly gentle way, and asked her for this favor. She shocked herself by accepting. It was (or should have been) ordinary work, but the teacher had been so particular about everything. He'd grated her last nerve, really, but she stayed until their job was accomplished. He thanked her profusely, in that quiet and soft manner that charmed her in the first place, offering to give some form of compensation for her help. Normally, Kanzaki would've exploited this to the last iota it was worth, but she'd heard movement on the rooftop. She excused herself, figuring that it could have only been one person. 

She had license not to be too concerned about him now, but Kikuchi throwing tantrums was too weird. She could handle him being unpredictable and throwing himself in the midst of something he wasn't used to... But if she let him draw into himself, it would be certain to spell disaster. It probably wouldn't be like hers, but intuition told her that if Kikuchi totally broke down, it would be no stroll in the park. 

Kanzaki could already see that it wasn't Kikuchi dangling precariously near the edge of the rooftop. The form was smaller, and more twiggy, dare she say. She called for that boy's attention, anyway. 

"I've heard rumors about your intelligence - most of them not so good, I'm afraid - but surely your depth perception can't be this incompetent?" Kanzaki teased. She secretly delighted in Yoshikawa's little jump of surprise. 

"K-Kanzaki-san!" 

Still with a cheerful, almost upsettingly joyful voice, she approached him. "What are you doing up so high, Superman? Don't you think you're a bit too close to the edge?" 

"I... Well, I'm not going to-" 

"I know you're not going to. Onizuka would have your head if you were." Kanzaki winked at him. 

Yoshikawa blushed furiously. Kanzaki chalked it up to social ineptness... as nice a kid as Yoshikawa was, he barely had any close friends in school, and there was just one girl he seemed comfortable with, and that was the result of her being obsessed with him. "So what are you doing here, aside from not committing suicide?" 

The blush slowly disappeared, as his face flashed feelings of sadness, confusion, and bashfulness all at once. "I came from Anko's house. We were supposed to study together... and I kind of abandoned her." 

"Oh?" Kanzaki looked intrigued. She was a genius, sure, but inside the heart of that genius was a teenage girl. "Was the Math too hard or were you getting 'distracted', shall we say?" 

Her classmate was calm, not at all flustered by this insinuation, causing a slight disappointment in Kanzaki. She lived for the squirming she could induce in other people."We didn't do anything. I couldn't... I mean, um." Yoshikawa exhaled loudly. "I tried to go home, but my sister fell asleep. I couldn't bust in, even if Onizuka once taught-" Yoshikawa stopped abruptly, then the blush came. 

Kanzaki noticed and wondered why it was a bit belated. She expected it to come after the Anko innuendo. "Locked out? Poor boy! Come on, then, I have this urge to bring home stray children today..." 

Confusion. "Um. What?" 

"I know. I've been so charitable lately I feel like I've betrayed my true self for the sake of the warm and fuzzy. I hope to get a good night's sleep and get back to normal." Kanzaki grabbed Yoshikawa's collar and proceeded to drag the boy away, not hearing a single one of his stuttered protests. "Don't drag your feet, you're slowing us down. The sooner I get to bed the sooner I can clear my head of this wretched generosity. As for you. Kikuchi and Murai can fight over you." 

"You... Kikuchi... Murai?!" It wasn't so much a three-part question as it was a prolonged word. 

Still dragging Yoshikawa, Kanzaki answered his "question" without missing a beat. "Yes, I still live with Kikuchi. So does Murai, as he's still boycotting his mom's new husband. Anyway, I'm sure one of them can take you in their rooms. Will you move your feet, they function better that way." 

He opted to finally walk properly instead of skidding along with Kanzaki dragging him, in a valient effort to maintain whatever small amount of dignity he might possess. Just in case he still had some left.


	2. Chapter 2

For those who left reviews for the first chapter, do drop by my website (URL found in author's page) and read my reply to you.   
  
Chapter 2 

Kanzaki dug into her backpack and scavenged furiously. "Oh, let them be bothered." She pulled out her arm in exasperation and started banging on the door of her shared apartment. "Open up! It's Urumi. Oh, and we have a visitor! Let's be decent in there, shall we?" 

Murai opened the door with a great scowl on his face. "Welcome home." 

"You know, with all the job opportunities that you're less than qualified for, it wouldn't hurt to improve skills in attending to doors. Just in case someone wants you as their big-shot butler. You never know." Kanzaki strolled inside, a hand wrapped securely around Yoshikawa's limp wrist. 

Not one greeting passed between the two boys, each feeling a level of weariness that made it hard to be overtly amiable at the present time. 

Kanzaki pushed Yoshikawa onto the couch, with equal parts gentleness and impishness. He stumbled on top of the mattress, looking practically boneless with his unresisting movement. "There, you look perfect just like that. I know I raised your hopes and everything, but it looks like a little generosity isn't an option for Murai tonight. Either he got his ass kicked in the arcade again, or his mommy figured out that those divorce papers weren't authentic." 

"That plan would've worked, but for your information, Kikuchi didn't even want to fabricate those documents unless I paid him." Murai glared at the closed door that concealed a thoroughly stingy individual. "Which makes sense, because he never wants to do anything for anyone. I bet he'd only tutor me if I gave him compensation for it, or find some other way to _cheapen our friendship_!" 

"Then kindly be such a rich friend and let me sleep!" retorted the detested door. 

"I take it we're not going to have much luck with Kikuchi, either," Kanzaki concluded. She patted Yoshikawa's head once, then headed for her room. "You'll have to make do with this. Sleep tight, Yoshikawa!" 

And so Kanzaki left him, at the mercy of a seething but mostly mathematically inept Murai. Yoshikawa quietly resigned to his fate, folding himself amidst the pillows and inglenooks of the furniture he'd been made to lay on. He was quite content with being ignored (even by Murai) in favor of a textbook, as he closed his eyes in the pretense of sleep. 

But underneath his eyelids rampantly flashed the images and sounds of his chaotic day. Upon snarled and tangled thread hung snapshots of what had been some of the most trying and tiring hours he'd ever lived, fraying at each touch, spinning with every throb of his pulse. He lost himself trying to push these memories into oblivion, too caught up in negating remembrance. 

"You're sleeping here?" Yoshikawa was questioned, when Murai finally achieved the presence of mind to ask. 

_I'm trying to, but my mind seems to have plans more important than getting unconscious and letting me end this day once and for all._ Instead of saying those exact words - or any words at all - Yoshikawa spared himself from having to answer, and pretended that he had fallen asleep. If he couldn't convince his body that it was what he needed, maybe he could at least fool Murai. 

Fortunately, Murai happened to be more gullible than Yoshikawa's physique, and returned to grumbling into his homework without any further attempts at deriving an answer from their unanticipated visitor. And so the thoughts flew freely and uninterrupted once more in Yoshikawa's brain, attacking him relentlessly with "this is what you did" and "this is what you should have done". 

Everything replayed in a colorful rendition with each detail apparently deserving at least one run-through, though select scenes were revisited more frequently than others. 

Mostly, he thought back to Anko... Desperate and defeated Anko.

* * *

_They had been huddled over a science book, both pairs of eyes sweeping across the black stretch of grueling text. Yoshikawa sighed in near silence, frustration getting hold of him. Feeling a wave of sympathy, Anko's glanced up at him with truest concern. "Is there something you don't get?" _

"I've sort of been lost since the beginning of the chapter." 

Anko made a neutral sound, to be freely interpreted. "Hmm. It's not that difficult, actually. Nevertheless, I don't think it's good to overwork yourself, especially since you're not used to it. On the other hand, the downward spiral that is your grades is getting wildly out of control. Are you distracted? Is it one of your terribly geeky little video games...?" 

"No, it's not," he insisted. It hadn't been the first time she asked. "I'm not throwing my life away for the Playstation, honest." 

Anko sat up, staring down at the textbook, at a loss. "You learned more from Onizuka even if the guy taught you next to nothing." She saw the look on his face - a mild but unmistakably hurt expression. "Academically, I mean. I know he taught you all these other majestic, life-altering things and made you all the better person... Yeah, yeah. I liked the guy too. I guess something must be distracting you right now. All I know is it can't very well be me." 

Yoshikawa had smiled at that, wanting to steer the conversation towards a more light-hearted direction. "How can you be so sure? Maybe I shouldn't spend so much time with you, because you occupy too much of the available space in my brain." 

"Hmm. Hardly." 

The boy had been persistent. He would refuse the emergence of a serious talk as it drew nigh, go to all sorts of lengths to eschew it. "Modesty isn't a good look for you. It's one trend that doesn't suit you too well," he teased her. 

She acted as if she heard nothing, just closed the science book sprawled between them and gathered it into her arms. "It's not your fault if you don't like me as much..." 

Yoshikawa knew he couldn't rely on his avoidance for too long... He allowed the discussion to continue, if only because she needed the repeat performance. "I do like you. I really do, and I love you." He said it so simply, so straightforward that she there was no space for her to be shocked or be doubtful. He said it almost as if he were speaking to his mother... Which, believe it or not, actually wasn't helping his case. "I care about you more than anyone in the world." 

"How about Onizuka?" 

Yoshikawa faltered. "Onizuka?" 

Anko looked firmly into his eyes. "Come on, Noboru. If you were to go back in time and were given the choice to meet only one of us, who would it be?" 

"You can't... just decide something like that! Nobody can choose between two people, and besides, you two are different! You two mean different things to me, you - Anko, you're my friend." 

It was obvious, by the way she looked at him with wounded eyes, that he had somehow insulted her. "I'm your friend? What's Onizuka, then?" 

"My teacher," he replied, lamely. 

She allowed some time for her heart to return to its normal pace, for her breath to come in and out of her body like it usually did. "I can choose you, over any of the people I know. I can choose you over my family, even over my friends. Not because I hate them or they don't mean enough to me. But I'd choose you." 

"I... That's too much for you to say," Yoshikawa stammered. 

She leaned into him, took his hands and wound his arms around her waist. "If you won't listen to me, feel me." She placed her wrists on his shoulders, fingers lightly splayed on his neck, and her lips found his in a soft collision. 

Yoshikawa awkwardly held Anko to himself, limbs resolute. He moved his lips against hers, all the while trying to quell an uprising of terror somewhere inside him. It felt like his mouth was scraping against canvas, as if he were testing a surface instead of kissing a person. His unstable heartbeat rapped unpleasantly against the hollows of his chest, as his fingers curled around her shirt, suppressing the demanding instinct to push her away. He waited out every agonizing second, for her to break the kiss. 

"That was..." she began breathily, sounding wistful, dreamy; as if she were reading lines from a book. "You felt that, right? That was..." She never really put into words what she thought it was, but she kept nodding, as if she were trying to prod the lines from someone else, as if she were bobbing for answers. 

"It, um... takes a while to get used to." Yoshikawa didn't like how he sounded. "I mean, I've never kissed anyone before. It's too new." 

"Oh, God." There was a shock of helplessness that made Anko's eyes shine with an odd, heart-breaking brightness. Feeling self-conscious, she bent a little to bury her face in his shoulder. "There has to be a way to fix this. We can analyze it and find a solution, there's a solution for everything." She held onto the boy standing stiffly in front of her, the one who wasn't supposed to be feeling as vulnerable as she was. "Because you love me, and I love you, despite everything, right? It has to count for something. It would be stupid if this didn't work out. There's nothing wrong with you. I mean, us_, there's nothing wrong with-" _

Yoshikawa gaped at her, because she'd never looked more serious in her life. "There isn't anything 'wrong' with me-" 

"I just said that-" 

"And just because we're not, what, fooling around? As if it was something we have to do just because movies like to depict teenage life like that, as if media calls the shots-" 

"I didn't mean- I wasn't trying to insult-" Anko gritted her teeth. Slapped him. "God, let's just do_ it." _

The ferocity in her eyes wouldn't allow him to ask for clarification. "We don't need that..." he whispered weakly. He rubbed his cheek, not because she had hit him hard, but to give his trembling hands something to do. 

"We _do_. I'm..." Anko's expression softened - her eyes were pleading_. "It won't hurt me. I love you." _

Yoshikawa shook his head. Even if he could find the logical connection between those statements, it would have been meaningless. With his back to her, his farewell had been, "It's not going to solve anything."

* * *

Now, laying on the couch and reminiscing, Yoshikawa had to wonder just how true that would have proved. What if he had been wrong, and that one act would have fixed him and her, if it would have provided the solution to the problem Anko had structured. 

What would it solve, anyway? Had there been something that needed repair to begin with? And if it did exist, was it something the two of them could overcome?

* * *

He hadn't been mindful of Murai retiring to his room, and he wasn't aware of how long it had been until sleep had slowly but surely subdued him. After an incomprehensible duration of time, in the same drowsy sensation he found that the upsetting morning light had trickled and seeped into his vision, still narrow with residue slumber. Sounds became louder and more distinct, despite his struggles to keep them dull and separate from his thoughts. 

It was a losing battle, and in no time, he found himself irredeemably awake. He groaned into the cushion beneath him, and finally, a skinny frame emerged behind the pillows. He saw three of his classmates faintly going about their own morning rituals. "Good morning," he greeted them with the painful effort of sounding cheerful. 

Having been answered with a couple of grunts and growls, he induced that none of them were part of the mythical group best known as "morning people". He had only received a more or less proper reply from Kikuchi: a confused "Hey", which he muttered because he had been taken a good deal off guard by Yoshikawa's presence. 

Yoshikawa observed them uneasily. Kanzaki was going over a newspaper, Kikuchi was lazily lounging in front of his laptop, and Murai was packing his mouth with breakfast. Yoshikawa woke up with an intense hunger, but couldn't bring himself to ask any of them for breakfast. He decided to put it off for now, and wait until they were ready to interact with other human beings. To bide time, he decided he would call his sister. "Can I use the phone?" he asked politely. 

Ten minutes later, Murai must have noticed that the poor guy had been standing in front of the telephone, meekly waiting for permission. He glanced at Yoshikawa and gruffly made a hand gesture that signified consent. 

Relieved, Yoshikawa dialed his number and was treated to his sister's notably buoyant voice. "Hello?" 

"Hi. It's Noboru." 

"Wonderful." Wait, did that... just come without sarcasm? Yoshikawa could practically hear the grin on her face. "Good morning, little brother." 

He felt his skin crawl, unprepared for this flagrant manifestation of affection. "You know, you locked me out yesterday." 

"I did, I'm sorry. The thing about last night... Well, Ha-kun arrived last night!" Takayuki squealed. Dear Lord, she _squealed_. "Took me by surprise, he did. Took me other ways, too, in different posi-" 

"No, no divulging!" Yoshikawa cringed. "You have friends for that sort of thing! And really, don't I deserve at least a little apology? You did prevent me from getting inside my own house. The least you could do was open the door for me, I was rapping at it for nothing short of an hour." 

"I'm truly sorry, but I really didn't hear anything. It's a bit difficult when-" 

"Okay, got it," he snapped. He had never been so snarky with his older sister, but she had never been so awfully giggly with him, either. "The fact remains that I would've had to sleep in the streets. Luck has it my classmate found me and offered to let me stay with them." 

"That's great, then! I'm so happy for you!" Takayuki gushed. Yoshikawa had a feeling she was just happy, period. "Sleeping at your friend's house, that sounds fun." 

Yoshikawa surveyed the room, taking in the sight of three grouchy teenagers immersed in his or her own world. "Yeah. Fun." 

"You must be very close to this friend of yours, huh, Noboru? I bet you had a great time. You know, you and your friend. Without me and Ha-kun to disturb you with any of our private affairs." 

"...Actually, that _would_ be nice..." 

"Your friend must really like you to want you to stay there, huh?" _Hint, hint._

"I doubt that they would like me here any longer that necessary," he admitted softly, even though nobody within hearing range was paying him any attention. 

"They? You mean there are a lot of you? That sounds so cool, Noboru. It would be like a dorm, if you lived there with your friends." _Hint, hint, hint, and for emphasis, **HINT**_. 

It had been a while since he'd questioned whether or not they were his friends. It wasn't too long ago when he'd said that Onizuka was his only friend. The one-item list expanded, albeit minimally, to include a few more names... but he never discerned whether it extended to Kanzaki, Murai, and even Kikuchi. "I guess. I never really liked the idea of dorms, though." 

Already sick of her futile attempt at subtlety, Takayuki resorted to telling her younger brother exactly what he should do. "Alright, don't be such a kid, you _don't_ want to live here with me," she informed him. "Just ask your friends if it's okay to live there. Tell them you'll pay your share, I'll help you out with it." 

"I don't want to live-!" he stopped himself in mid-protest, before anyone could pick up on what he and her sister were talking about. "No, I won't ask." 

"Oh, come on! Even for just a while? Just so Ha-kun and I can adjust to being with each other. Give us, I don't know, just a few months. I want this relationship to work, dammit. Don't you want me to be happy?" 

Yoshikawa rubbed his temple, something that usually followed a round of his sister's dramatics. "I do. But it won't make a difference with me there, anyway. I'm low-key, remember?" 

"Noboru!" Hers was the only violent whine Yoshikawa ever had the privilege of listening to. It would take Anko years of experience to achieve the potency Takayuki's incensed complaining. "Be a good brother! Think of me and my future with my husband! Remember what happened to mom and dad? Could you, in good conscience, subject me to a similar kind of life?" 

"Think of it this way, you can always blame it on me," he replied hotly. "Look, I'm sorry, but I'm really too embarrassed to just invite myself over... permanently." He tried to make himself as cryptic as possible, just in case any of this reached the coherent part of Kanzaki, Kikuchi, or Murai. 

"I'll do it! Give one of them the phone, I'll ask for you-" 

"Forget it!" was the immediate reply. "No, I mean... I'm sorry. Look, we'll talk about it at home, okay? 'Bye." 

He hung up the phone in a frenzy, cutting off any possible response. He'd deal with this later, and make it clear that he wasn't about to be kicked out of his own house. 

It was a good turn of events to witness an actual conversation happening, be it predominantly occurring in less than five syllables. Kikuchi and Murai mumbled at each other, and for some inscrutable reason, there was understanding between them. Murai turned down the volume of the television and Kikuchi, satisfied, turned back to the computer monitor. 

Yoshikawa looked down at his clothes and sighed. He was going to have to go to school unwashed, unchanged, and with unbrushed teeth. 

And, he realized in abject horror, without his assignment in Latin. 

In an act of both bravery and desperation, he sat across Kanzaki and asked, in a voice that wanted to be both heard and ignored, "Um... Kanzaki-san? Do you happen to know anything about Latin?" 

In an instant her eyes were open and her aura accommodating. "Latin? You're taking Latin?" 

Without shedding any lethargy, both Murai and Kikuchi looked up. Though void of energy, Murai managed to ask, "May I ask what inspired the pure brilliance that led you to choosing Latin as your foreign language? You do realize it's not a very popular elective." 

Yoshikawa hesitated, as he attempted to conjure a plausible answer. "Well, Latin is a romantic language." 

"Romantic? It's a dead language, what's so romantic about that?" Kikuchi asked him levelly. 

"Um... well, death is eternal. And so is love...?" 

Kikuchi shrugged. "...Yoshikawa, you're a weird guy. I'm not insulting you. I'm just saying you're weird." 

"Oh." _That's fair_, Yoshikawa thought. 

"I haven't done Latin. I've had my share of Western linguistics, truth be told," Kanzaki said, her attention pried completely away from the newspaper in her hands. "I'm getting into Eastern dialects, even if they're not being widely taught. Anyway. You should have signed up for English or something." 

"I was never very good at English," Yoshikawa admitted. "I don't know, I just chose Latin. There was this one game I really liked, and it had a Latin title. Magna Carta. And I must sound like a total loser." 

Murai, coming out of his stupor, gawked at him. "I wasn't going to comment, but... dude, you're going to suffer for an entire semester because you had a hard-on for the chick with the braids?" 

"Are you talking about Adora? Or Rien? Wait, hey, I don't get... I don't get - _you know_ - because of 2D people. Give me some credit!" 

"You're taking up Italian, right?" Kanzaki asked Kikuchi. 

"Yeah. I believe it's the closest language to Latin, among all its other descendants." Kikuchi turned to Yoshikawa. "What do you need help in?" 

"Actually..." He couldn't help but inject a bit of shame in his intonation. _That's just wonderful. The more pathetic, the better._ "I just need the importance of learning Latin. It's the first week, so we're not given that much work yet." 

Kikuchi nodded, then his attention was given back to his computer. "We can search for it. There are bound to be English sites about things like that. I'll just translate them for you." 

"Thanks. That's... convenient." Yoshikawa seemed almost disappointed that the proposed plan seemed so simple, so infuriatingly easy to achieve. "Uh, but, shouldn't I think of the answers myself?" 

"When it comes to the real lessons, you can work hard for it. Blood, sweat, and tears - knock yourself out. For now, we'll just take the easy way out. This is obligatory meaningless drivel, anyway. Besides, we have to leave for school in about fifteen minutes." As an afterthought, he added, "Later on, if you need help... I'll see what I can do, alright?" 

Nearly fainting with gratitude, Yoshikawa thanked Kikuchi, with one less thing to worry about.


	3. Chapter 3

A few minutes into lunch break, and Kikuchi had already bumped into all of Saeko's closest friends. He'd received different versions of reprimanding from his classmates; a couple of guys glared at him, their lips defined in profound scowls, and several of others walked past him without even the slightest gesture of acknowledgement. 

You'd think, by now, that he would've mastered the glorious art of apathy. 

It's true that how he propositioned her seems harsh, but it didn't come guiltless. He wasn't desensitized enough to feel absolutely unaffected by the fact that he hurt someone, just enough that he risked the chance of hurting that person to begin with. With the results of their encounter weighing on his weary conscience, he sat at a deserted table and isolated himself from the rest of his known society. 

He didn't despise himself, not really, but he did hate the fact that the things he did could affect other people so negatively. He'd examined this logic over and over - took the concept and attacked it from different directions. It shouldn't be so difficult. Why should anyone suffer just because he changed his mind about monogamous relationships? Why should anyone take it personally if, after breaking up with Kanzaki, he has sold himself to the world as one who is incapable of falling in love? 

He'd only given himself to this modified way of living for some three months and it was already taking its toll on him... Not physically, rest assured. Psychologically? Probably. Emotionally? Quite likely. And mentally? Oh, yes. Meaning, this whole dating strategy is already defeating its own purpose. He wanted with raw desperation to stop thinking, to have his cerebral soliloquies muffled by anything that had enough potency to overwhelm his naturally focused senses. 

He hadn't done any of it to replace Kanzaki. _Oh, no, not that._ Never that. 

_It's not as if she was the theme upon which obsessive revolutions were centered in my mind's workings. It's not like I needed any and all forms of distraction from the lamentations of what had gone wrong between us - no, that's not the case at all._

This is a familiar sight. Kikuchi uncertainly mourns over another person's crumbled pride as he continues to renovate his own, convincing himself of whatever he needs to - less successfully than he would when the charade is erected for someone else's sake - with every logical fiber in his body. 

He pulls out of his own world long enough to prepare himself for Saeko walking towards him. He rearranges the muscles on his face to make himself look apologetic - although by some frustrating reason, he helplessly felt as if he looked more _forgiving_ than penitent. The reply he got for his troubles was a pointed exclamation of silence, as Saeko rushed past him with distinct indifference. He sighed and berated his features for looking so damn smug half the time. 

He indulged in what she probably wanted him to do: he turned and followed her with his eyes as she stomped off with exaggerated nobility. His interest in where she was going had left him as soon as it came, and his eyes strayed towards the vast field that was situated near the cafeteria. He caught Yoshikawa walking up and over the large uprooted remains of a tree, his slow trudges matching the glum look about his eyes. 

Ah, so Yoshikawa was moping about again. Kikuchi felt mildly worried, as he suspected more than half the class felt whenever Yoshikawa's well-being was concerned. It's not like the guy was popular or that he'd made friends with so many people. But Yoshikawa, to everyone aroud him, would always look like a boy who would need someone to protect him, to comfort him... partially because that's probably the case. Kikuchi had done his part that morning, tried to be a good friend to him, but it didn't seem to have made a big difference in the grand scheme of things. 

His thoughts shifted from one thing to another, and he wasn't aware how much time he'd lost before Murai and his obligatory posse came to remedy the calmness that had come to surround Kikuchi. 

"You never tutored me." 

It took awhile to follow Murai's wavelength... Not that this exercise was particularly challenging. "...I'm not tutoring. I just offered to help him with Latin. Latin's tough." 

"So's Math!" Murai cried. Beside him, Fujiyoshi and Kusano nodded. 

Kikuchi shrugged. "Yoshikawa got himself a dominatrix girlfriend and got her to teach him Math." 

"He gets Latin, I should get one subject, too!" 

"What's wrong with you? You're worse than an ex-girlfriend." 

Murai actually stepped back from Kikuchi's table. "Uh, _ew_." 

From behind Kikuchi, a voice asked mischeviously, "Is this the part where I get insulted?" Kanzaki smiled at them and sat across Kikuchi. 

"We're friends, okay, but I won't have you involving me in your fucked up little fetishes..." Murai looked pissed (not that there were a lot of instances when he didn't), Kusano looked fairly sick, and Fujiyoshi just looked embarrassed by what was happening. Kikuchi's eyes were expressing as much disgust as Murai's entire face. 

Kanzaki cleared her throat. "This house believes that the conversation must be taken outside, tied to a tree and beaten with a stick." Kikuchi just sighed at her debate jargon, while Murai was struck with an idea. 

"Okay, I know, Kikuchi can tutor Yoshikawa and then I can get Kanzaki," Murai suggested, with a note of triumph. 

"You don't 'get' anyone, Oedipus" was Kanzaki's snippy reply; simultaneously Kikuchi had encouraged Murai softly, with an unpromising "Sure, good luck." 

"I hate you all." Murai turned to Fujiyoshi as they walked away. "Who's Oedipus again?" 

"Er, I think I remember him from some history class... Not Roman... Persian? Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was Persian." 

Kusano's head could be seen shaking vehemently before the three of them disappeared from view, and their voices gradually got softer as they headed inside a nearby building. The last thing Kikuchi could make out was Kusano saying "_No_, you so made that up. He was from, like, a poem by this gay guy..." 

"So, how are you?" Kanzaki asked Kikuchi, so suddenly and so... _cheesily_ that he felt his heart skip a beat. Having her greet him like that proved to be quite a scare. 

"I thought we promised not to talk about each other." Kikuchi impressively supressed a wince. "And stop that." 

"Stop? Being nice?" Kanzaki provided, sounding sympathetic. 

Kikuchi didn't answer her, and once again a small sliver of guilt found itself streaking across his heart. "Is it just me or am I being avoided by Murai's minions? Or maybe Kusano and Fujiyoshi have gotten more responsible? Because, if I remember correctly, they used to be as insistent about tutoring as Murai was. Of course, between the two of them, they were better at bribing." 

Apparently not interested, Kanzaki declared, "I'm doing fine." 

Her ex-boyfriend felt no urge to congratulate her for her current condition in life. "And listening attentively to what I'm saying, too." 

"I was listening. Yes, as of late, Murai's friends act pretty skittish when you're around. I suspect Murai would be equally wary of you, if only he didn't need you to provide stepdad-boycotting grounds." Kanzaki made a show of looking thoughtful. "Must be the gender-bendy playboy thing. 'Gender-bendy', gods, will you listen to me? I'm becoming something else these days." 

_Yeah. Happy._ Kikuchi's eyes widened as he realized just that... Kanzaki was happy. 

"Oh, well. As they say, change is the only permanent thing in this world. I mean, look at you. Asexual one day, admittedly attracted to me the next, and, well, typical male thereafter. Such was the evolution we've had the privelege to observe..." 

Kikuchi looked up from his food after a few seconds, when he realized that silence settled upon them without Kanzaki's cheerfully disturbing it. "Was I supposed to say something in return?" he wondered aloud, confused. 

"You were supposed to discuss why you've become so obsessed with sex," she explained. "I mean, theoretically, most guys are. But you're a) actually making it known like you were making up for lost time, and b) acting upon it." 

"Oh. And I have to... give you my reasons?" he asked her slowly, as if still trying to extract a point from their exchange. 

Kanzaki nodded. "Yes." 

"Because...?" 

"I want to know what's up with the whole sleeping around phenomenon with you. We've let it go by unmentioned for... what, how many months? I think we have come to the point wherein we can analyze the situation between us." Kanzaki looked at him seriously. "I won't allow you to blame this on a haphazard thought you decided on one night. No, there's a great, majestic reason for this and I want to hear it. Unless it's because you're trying to fill a void in your heart and one person isn't sufficient to fill out a space that I-" 

"Hah!" Kikuchi released an unmistakably mocking laugh, almost as if it were an involuntary reflex. He winced. "Sorry." 

"Ass. Whatever, I want to hear you defend yourself. Go on, present your arguments! And you better not give me those half-assed 'we're just teenagers anyway, what do we know about love' arguments. I want solid premises; I want your constructive logic, and not your excuses." 

Kikuchi was almost worried about her. "Do you think, maybe, that this debate thing is taking up too much of your time?" 

Kanzaki just smiled prettily. "I'm waiting. Tell me, why do you spit on monogamy? Defend yourself!" 

"I don't feel that I have to 'defend' myself exactly," Kikuchi answered her, face betraying his apathy. "But first of all, monogamy has to do with marriage. I'm not married to anybody, although, come to think of it, I don't ever plan to be. It's not as if I don't want to be faithful, but what's there to be faithful for? 

"Why is monogamy such a significant social conformance to begin with? We can see, historically, that it was basically these guys wanting to possess their women. For example, the Christians of yore. The commandment 'Thou shalt not covet your neighbor's goods' encompassed everything the 'neighbor' owned... including his wife. It was only later that they added the commandment to separate his belongings and the woman he married. That's the basic principle of monogamy... owning somebody. I just don't find that as ethical as society makes it out to be. Then the renaissance brings forth the ideal of romance. And later on we adopt romance to mean something that could happen exclusively between two people. It's a silly, overplayed evolution over an abstract idea that originated with _extramarital affairs_. Generally, marriage had been an arrangement that was political more than anything. We see this in the monarch system and in avoidance of marriages between mixed social classes. Love as a term attached to lovers who seeked 'romance' outside their marriage." Kikuchi was already tired of speaking, so he finished up lamely. "So there." 

After Kikuchi concluded his less than impassioned speech, to his bewilderment, Kanzaki took a notebook out of her bag and began scribbling furiously. 

Kikuchi felt like he was in therapy. 

"Those were okay points," she said in a tolerant, matter-of-fact voice after she was finished writing. Kanzaki stuffed the notebook inside her backpack and gave him another winning smile. "We're having a mock-debate with this other school, and we've got a stupid motion... 'This house believes that couples marry for love.' Sad, huh? And we're Government, meaning I have to defend that. I want to preempt the arguments that the other side is likely to bring up." 

And now Kikuchi felt, though ambiguously, like he had just been used. 

Kanzaki basked in the achievement of her goals. "That was good!" 

Kikuchi looked at her, at the lunch food, and back at her again. 

"No, of course not." She scoffed at the tray below her, beaming up at her in all its cafeteria-food glory. "Not the food, dummy. I meant our conversation." 

"Uh... You are aware that you just evaluated our conversation?" 

"Well, I..." Kanzaki paused. 

_And we're back to stammering._

She recovered, letting out a theatric sigh. "You should be aware that you just pointed out something that could clearly bring up another awkward moment which will deter what is supposed to be a swift return to our normal friendship." 

Kikuchi decided it would be best to play along, and pretend that they hadn't experienced a brief but undeniable rough spot. "However, it didn't bring up the aforementioned awkward moment." 

"Of course not. We're making progress." 

He was ready to joke about that, but he decided against it. They've made progress, sure enough, but they haven't actually accomplished the grueling task of repairing their friendship and shaping it into something that resembled the way things used to be. Nevertheless, that was one thing to be grateful about... and those blessings have come few and far between nowadays.

* * *

_I have to talk to her... I should be the one to approach her. I can't expect her to come running to me after I left her like that last night._ Yoshikawa groaned silently, kicking at the blackening bark of a delapidated tree branch. _But what do I tell her? Do I just go up to her and say sorry? Do I even have the right to expect forgiveness?_

_I could be casual. I could start out by asking for homework help._ Playing with that idea, Yoshikawa set up a plausible scenario in his head. 

_I don't know, is there a nice way of saying "I have very few friends and I need you, my math grades are going down"? How about, "I know it looked like I didn't like the kissing thing, but that shouldn't get in the way of you tutoring me. I'm an insensitive jerk. Please forgive me. Now let's be coupley and talk about quadratic functions." _

Okay, that_ was screwed up. Utterly, malevolently screwed up._

There really seemed to be no way around the idea that while he cared for her, and would go so much as to say that he _needed_ her, he didn't want her. He thought about the male stereotype when dealing with girls, and when he tried to associate his feelings for her with those kinds of thoughts... It repulsed him. It wasn't even the idea of being depraved or lecherous that he rather disagreed with, it was really the idea of _her_ in an erotic situation... An emotion stirred in him, and it felt similar to the ones he'd had to recover from that time Takayuki had been so unrestricted when talking about her sex life. 

He didn't see Anko the way he saw Takayuki, at least not most of the time. To illustrate the point, if Takayuki tried to hold his hand or hug him, he'd be much more opposed to it. But with Anko, it made him feel secure and cared for. Those touches were sweetly shared between them, and it made him comfortable with her and with himself. He even enjoyed that soft kiss of hers against his cheek. 

When her hugs came with those extra movements, and when the kisses held a blatant undertone to them... When the rubbing emerged, when the little moans were breathed upon his ear, when the desperation came groping at him... Suddenly, he wouldn't be able to stand it. She said it would solve everything, but she may have been wrong about that. 

As it was, she was still coming up with a solution. Although, she's moved on to another problem that needed dealing with. Her new problem went along the lines of Yoshikawa's most recent one, too. 

_"Look, I don't mean to imply that if I don't turn you on, you _must_ be gay, but... Anyway. Don't feel bad, it's also probably my fault that I've scarred you for life and rendered you permanently impotent, but my mother wasn't paying any attention to me at that time."_

Just like Yoshikawa, Anko was having problems composing her introductory lines. _There's no need to remind him what a raging bitch I used to be._

However, unlike Yoshikawa, she wasn't going to let the awkwardness stop her. 

Frustrated with the unproductive duration of careful plotting, she stomped all the way to the silly boy who was still moodily walking circles in the field. "Please, buy me food." 

Yoshikawa blinked. "Anko?" 

"Oh, I was hoping you'd recognize me." She smiled shyly, in contrast to the confident inflection her voice adopted. 

Yoshikawa was still too startled to find her bipolar sarcasm endearing, instead he just wallowed in a safe and tried emotion... confusion. "You haven't had lunch?" 

Anko shook her head. "You want to treat?" 

"I could." 

"Uehara! Lunch's almost over!" one of Anko's friends screamed from a distance, across the field. 

Anko ignored her. She didn't know what time it was, but she wouldn't put it past her friends to make something up just to separate her and Yoshikawa... out in the public like they were. It had much to do with clique politics, and Anko presently couldn't care less about her reputation even if she tried. "Let's skip." 

"I have Latin next..." Yoshikawa murmured weakly. With his godawful report card in mind, he still found himself reluctantly agreeing. "...but we do need to eat." 

"Yeah. Yeah, definitely." Anko instinctively shot her arm out, and they loosely cradled one another's hands in one of those touches that Yoshikawa loved so much. "And we have to talk too. But that comes after the ensuring nutrition." 

Yoshikawa laughed. He sounded a bit uneasy, but it wasn't a noise he had to force out of his throat; it wasn't a smile he had to force onto his face. 

Anko led the way to the exit and they sneaked out together with almost ridiculous ease. _Maybe there really is no way around it. I love him, but it doesn't look like it can happen, and I'll have to live with it._ Anko knew she'd have to learn how it felt like to not to get exactly what she wanted... But she could still remain oblivious on how being empty-handed feels like. 

As if to prove this, she looked down at her hand, still clutching Yoshikawa's.

* * *

Sorry about the "debate". I think I invented the entire renaissance thing. :/ (Note to self: It sucks writing characters who are severely smarter than you.) I was trying to get Kikuchi's story across, but I didn't want to engulf the entire first few chapters with flashbacks. Anyway, I've resolved to make more free time for this story... but first I have to get past _Quiet Flows the Don_ by Mikhail Sholokov for my English class. (Huff.) Once more, review responses on the webpage. Thanks, guys. :) 


	4. Chapter 4

"Don't tell me you're depressed again," Kikuchi muttered as he sat beside Yoshikawa. He had seen the boy sitting with his back against a tree, playing with the bag strap slung diagonally over his chest. It was amusing in a way, how unconsciously pitiful that boy could look sometimes. "I don't understand how you can take all this constant misery." 

Yoshikawa seemed to need some time before he could say anything. He never quite knew what to do when people tried to reach out to him, even after repeated sympathetic looks from the same faces. "I'm not depressed." 

"Oh, right, I forget. You have that permanent look of hurt on your face." Kikuchi put his hand on Yoshikawa's shoulder, softening the words. "You always take everything to heart, Yoshikawa. Sometimes, I think you let all these problems get to you too much." 

The boy with affectability in question tried to repress the hint of helplessness in his voice. "I can't cope with things like you do." 

Kikuchi knew better than to take that as an insult. "I know, I'm not saying you should. I just think you should _cope_, one way or another." 

All of a sudden, a surprising surge of panic captured Yoshikawa and slithered almost thrillingly up his spine. It was as if he'd felt Kikuchi's intent to get up and walk away, like it was a tangible sign that the other boy was about to leave it at that. And he didn't know why, considering he didn't even want company in the first place, but the thought of Kikuchi giving a goodbye pat on his shoulder accompanied by a few supportive words was an unacceptable one to Yoshikawa. 

"Anko broke up with me," he blurted out. Embarrassed, he added, "About a week ago. She broke up with me. I think." 

"So you really were together?" Kikuchi muttered, more to himself. 

Yoshikawa's head hung lower than usual. "I think." 

"Are we going to share break up stories now?" Kikuchi wondered mildly. 

"I don't want to talk about it," Yoshikawa replied almost automatically. He winced. That was a guaranteed move to drive anyone away. 

"I didn't think so." Kikuchi leaned against the tree now, mimicking the other boy's position. "It'll get better." 

"Is that what happened with you? Has it gotten better?" Yoshikawa asked, completely out of curiosity. "I don't even know. How could I not know? We've really drifted apart, and I didn't even notice." He glanced at Kikuchi, who was wearing a thoughtful expression on his usually neutral face. "I could not have said all of that out loud." 

"You did," Kikuchi confirmed, with a barely contained smile. "And you're right about what's happened to us, unfortunately." 

"I didn't even realize that you and I were..." Yoshikawa began. "That I actually considered you a close friend. I mean... I must have been really preoccupied with Onizuka leaving." He noticed he brought his teacher up again, and just stopped talking, a residue habit from trying too long to be romantically involved with Anko. 

Kikuchi actually smirked a little at Yoshikawa's face - it was as if the boy was experiencing an intense bout of enlightenment. "I'm fine with being taken for granted." 

Whoops, that didn't sound too good. 

"I- I didn't mean to-" Yoshikawa stuttered, like he was trying to get the apology out as quickly as possible. 

"No, it's fine," Kikuchi cut him off. "I didn't mean to sound accusing. I meant it as it was, that it's alright. So long as, in the first place, you felt that there was something to take for granted. Do you understand?" Kikuchi was trying to tell him that, _Yes, I am your friend, thank you for finally realizing this_. 

Yoshikawa felt his neck rush with blood, although he wasn't entirely sure why. "I think so." 

"So maybe next time you won't look so disoriented when I sit beside you in some dramatic setting and ask you if there's anything I can do to help?" 

Yoshikawa chuckled slightly. "Was that what you were doing?" 

"I tried," Kikuchi defended himself. 

"Thanks," Yoshikawa said softly. He was feeling silly, so he turned away from Kikuchi to hide a wide smile. The smile slowly dissolved when he wondered to himself if he'd even done anything remotely friendly when Kikuchi had broken up with Kanzaki. "I didn't even try for you, did I? I knew you were going through a rough time... Everyone knew." 

"You were afraid of not knowing what to say, and now you don't know how to react to my way of dealing with things. That's hardly unforgivable." Kikuchi snorted. "When everyone found out about me, it caused little to no commotion. After the downward spiral triggered by that widely talked about break-up, I don't think I could've done anything to shock anyone. I went on living outside convention, and everyone let me be. You all allowed me to do as I wished without so much as a question flung at my direction. 

"But I'd always knew you'd be uncomfortable with it. I knew the others would, too, but yours is the discomfort I don't know how to brush off." Kikuchi felt eyes on him, but he didn't reciprocate the gaze. "The thing is, I'm not ashamed about what I'm doing. But it's not as if I don't care whether or not it makes it hard for you to be my friend." 

"I don't want to be uncomfortable around you..." Yoshikawa sighed. "I shouldn't have _not_ done anything. I shouldn't have _not_ asked just because I kinda didn't want to hear the details... Right? How- how's it working out?" 

"A friendly piece of advise, you really shouldn't ask me that right after admitting that you don't want to hear the answer." The smile wasn't on Kikuchi's face, but it was certainly in his tone. 

"I... um..." Yoshikawa faltered. "Alright, maybe I'm not that eager to hear about it, but... to coin a phrase, I tried. I do want to show you that I appreciate your offer to listen to me, so... If there's anything you want to let out, I want to hear it. Really. Go ahead, offend me." 

"That's very generous of you." But Kikuchi didn't say anything more. 

In an effort to show his newfound courage, Yoshikawa touched upon a subject that everyone tended to avoid when Kikuchi was around. "So... Uh, why... why's Kanzaki still living with you?" 

"She wants to," Kikuchi said, not appearing surprised by the inquiry. "Better living conditions, so I'm told." 

"Really?" 

"In the long run, it made everything else easier to deal with. Not that it wasn't a pain in the ass at first, and I think it compromised the 'get as many lovers as I can' objective, living with my ex-girlfriend and all." 

"...Compromised?" This was repeated in his that's-news-to-me look, accompanied by the rarity of widened eyes. Not that he could be blamed for his shock, upon recollection of the string of names that could, at least once in their lifetime, be linked to Kikuchi's. 

"She had a point, too, when she was convincing me. She pointed out that I wasn't dating Murai, but I let him board with me. All I could do was be flooded with relief, as I am quite certain never to find myself stooping so low as to include Murai in my admittedly large list of prospects. Anyway, I let her stay. All her stuff's there already..." He said it as if it explained everything. "And there would be hell to pay if I kicked her out. Wasn't too eager to associate myself in any way with her wrath." 

"...Like most sane people." 

"Exactly." 

It was commendable how long Yoshikawa could prolong a nod. 

Kikuchi decided to help him out. "Do you want to ask me about the break up, and then what could have incurred the rampant dating? If it can be called dating, that is..." 

"Um..." 

"The Kanzaki one is harder to explain, so I'm guessing that'll be more interesting to talk about..."

* * *

_"You invested a lot of emotion in our relationship. It took a year just to get us to work, you know? We were setting ourselves up for a huge collapse. Really, for what the world considers such intelligent people, we couldn't have stopped it any later than we did." _

Kikuchi made no movement. 

"You thought I understood what you go through. And for the most part, that's right. I understand how it is to know so much and to care for so little... but it never meant that I understood you. We would understand what the other one was thinking, maybe even why, but never how. I knew you - I know you - but I could never understand you. It's obvious why we're friends - we have a lot in common. But we couldn't have made it because we're too much alike - but only by circumstance. Otherwise, we're completely different." 

"You completely over-analyze everything." 

"Just trust me, okay? It's stupid, but I'm going to have to ask you to do it. Trust me. If it helps, I'm smarter than you, right?" She had meant to tease him and get him a bit petulant so that the situation wouldn't get too serious. 

But Kikuchi wasn't about to follow her plans. "And now it boils down to you're too smart to be with me." 

"No, that's not it. I'm too smart to continue a relationship with a close friend. That's closer to the truth." 

"You were never this vague and pretentious before, certainly not simultaneously," Kikuchi said icily. 

"Alright, here it is - attraction's supposed to be instant." 

"You don't believe that attraction is something that can build up as people get to know each other?" 

"No, but I understand that you believe that, and even why. What I don't understand is how you can. See, even if we have the capacity to think alike - to understand what the other understands - we don't. Moreover, we don't want to. When we became more than friends, we tried to work around that... And that was so troublesome_. You're far more fascinating when I don't try to get along with you the way you want me to, when I have no other responsibility besides being your friend. Between us, friendship is really tricky, but it's fun. When I try to cheer you up, I actually _want_ to do it. When I get sick and tired of you, it's a comforting kind of sick and tired. When we're friends, I'm me, and you're you." _

"Grow up, Urumi! You don't have to understand everything about me and I don't have to comply with all your requirements. Compromise_. That's what a relationship is about. I get it, you think that being in love is for the dull and uninteresting. Why, because everyone you know undergoes the same thing? When you love people for the same reason that most people love each other, does it make you less special? When you see that you have the same problems that everyone else has to overcome, does it irritate you that you weren't the girl who invented alienation? That's what this is about, isn't it? When we aren't together, you can find ways to complicate our relationship. You can show off all your little mental screw-ups just so you don't appear ordinary. Well, grow. Up. Everytime you fall in love, you will create a great, fancyfied tragedy out of it so you can escape the fact that there was an undeniable chance of you existing in a normal relationship. You'll mangle that chance, you don't want any of it if it doesn't startle... It only makes sense that you wouldn't want any arrangement wherein I love you, simple and straightforward, willing to do anything and change everything for you, just because it's too easy for you to handle!" _

It had been the first time for Kanzaki to hear him say it. "Yoshito..." 

"What?" 

"I'm not in love with you. I tried, for so long, just because it made sense_. Everything I said - yeah, that was me rationalizing. Because I tried to fall in love with you. I'm a teenage girl, I was so desperate to feel that. Sorry for shooting down your theories about wanting to be different, but I wanted to feel what everyone else was ranting and raving about. I wanted that normalcy. And I thought it had to be you. I really believed I would fall for you, like I wouldn't be able to stop it. But... I care for you." She spat out the words, too emotional for her liking. "I'm not in love with you, but I really did want to be."_

* * *

"She wanted to be with me because the odds we're she'd fall in love with me. She said the signs were there, and she followed them." Kikuchi exhaled, not sighed. He did not do it in sadness, he did it to let breath out. "The odds were wrong." 

"She said that to you?" Yoshikawa mumbled softly. 

"She didn't say it to hurt me," Kikuchi said rather dispassionately. "Anyway, we never ever talk about our relationship. After we had this thorough discussion, we promised that we wouldn't put each other through any of that again." 

"But it wasn't the talk that hurt, was it?" Yoshikawa glanced at Kikuchi worriedly when the taller boy didn't say anything. "You really loved her." 

"Mmm..." Kikuchi made a noncommital sound. "And Anko?" 

"Yeah," Yoshikawa answered without hesitation. "But when we were... sort of together, she just kept getting me all confused about..." He shook his head. He wasn't prepared to let Kikuchi know everything, not when he himself wasn't clear with all the facts. Although he still wanted to open up to his classmate, he found he couldn't bring himself to talk about what Anko had feared about him. _Kikuchi would just get severely disturbed._ Even after taking into consideration the fact that Kikuchi was currently going out with as many girls _and_ boys as he can, Yoshikawa was hesitant to talk about the issues Anko managed to find between them. 

"You had a fight with her, right?" Kikuchi finally turned to peer at Yoshikawa through his thick lenses. "That night before you slept at our apartment." 

Yoshikawa nodded. 

"What's with your sister?" Kikuchi questioned, remembering that day. "Why did she lock you out?" 

"Oh, she didn't do that on purpose." Yoshikawa rolled his eyes. "She forgot. You know, she's getting married and all, so she really has a lot on her mind." 

"Is that why she wants you to move in with me?" 

Yoshikawa proceeded to choke on his own saliva. "What!" 

"She called that same day, told me about her situation..." Kikuchi smiled at the memory, remembering how hard it was for him to believe that this girl - clearly not afraid of imposing on anyone - could be that closely related to Noboru. "I told her it would be difficult, as Murai and Kanzaki are usually opposed to having guests over. Especially my guests. I told her you're welcome to come over as often as you want, though." 

"I'm so sorry. My sister's a bit hysterical sometimes and doesn't necessarily think of other people... I can't believe- I really can't believe she went ahead and called you and-" 

"Slow down. I've never seen you so flustered." Kikuchi grinned openly this time. 

Yoshikawa took a deep breath. "I'm sorry." 

"I don't want you to be. Hey, I wish I could make space for you, if your family needs it so terribly. But, to be honest? Between Murai's sports channels and your PlayStation, I don't think you two would be able to survive living in such close proximity, given that we only have one TV set." 

"That's okay, I really don't want to be kicked out of our house." 

Kikuchi was as bewildered as he was endeared by how grateful Yoshikawa looked, even if he hadn't anything besides blatantly reject having a fourth person under his roof. Actually, half of the bewilderment was caused by the endearment he hadn't expected to feel. "If you're up to voluntarily leaving your house from time to time, you can come by and we can push through with the Latin lessons. At least that doesn't involve anyone moving out, and your sister won't badger you about your grades." Kikuchi didn't even notice that he brought it up again. 

Yoshikawa blinked. "You were serious about that?" 

"Hmm? Oh. Yeah." It was Kikuchi's turn to take time and consider what he'd just said. "Apparently." 

"See, that's good, because... I kind of cut Latin last week." With that, Yoshikawa's head was bowed once again, an unsaid apology written all over his already dreadful posture. 

Kikuchi raised an eyebrow. He knew he wasn't one to disapprove, but he couldn't help teasing his friend a little. Sarcastically, he mumbled, "I can see that we're off to a great start."

* * *

Chapter four and still no action? This must be some sort of yaoi fic record. -sweatdrop- My initial motivation was to not scare anyone away. The GTO category isn't exactly overflowing with yaoi, so I thought I'd take it easy on the boy-on-boy. It'll come, though, eventually. Be patient with my plot; it listens to no one - certainly not me. Good news, though: that was (most probably) the very last flashback. 

Next chapter: More male bonding, if that's alright with you. And speaking of the next chapter, it will come much quicker than this one did, I promise. 


	5. Chapter 5

Welcome to the 5th chapter! Well, I'm pleasantly surprised that people are still reading this... Here's some news since the latest long wait: I might not be updating the fanfic... on FanFiction Net, at least. If ever I do decide to post chapter six onwards somewhere else, just watch the the author's page; I'll add the link there.

* * *

"Okay... Vocabulary for introducing one's self. 'Who are you?'" 

"That's a very philosophical question. I'm not sure if I can answer it in my state, completely unprepared as I am." 

Kikuchi raised an eyebrow. "Now is what we would call the most inopportune time to be learning how to use sarcasm." 

Yoshikawa sighed a bit. Not that he didn't appreciate what Kikuchi was doing for him, but however expressive of good will it was, it was still essentially a tutoring session. Studying in all its incarnations was for from Yoshikawa's idea of a good time. "Ermm... _Quis tu?_" 

Kikuchi nodded briefly. "'My name is...'?" 

"_Mihi nomen est..._" 

Kikuchi rolled his eyes a bit when his pseudo-student left his sentence hanging. "...Yoshikawa..." the bespectacled boy supplied for his friend. 

"Yoshikawa. Noboru," Yoshikawa added. 

"Okay. Good. 'Nice to meet you.'" 

"_Suave te cognoscere est!_" Yoshikawa delivered the line with undeniable satisfaction lighting up his eyes. 

Kikuchi hid a smile at the other boy's almost childish pride at having remembered that Latin phrase. "Ask me how old I am." 

A bit of nose-crinkling to indicate concentration, then Yoshikawa hesitantly uttered, "_Quot annos natus es?_" 

"Now, pretend I'm a girl." 

Kanzaki's snickering could be heard as she entered the room. "Let me guess - I don't want to know." She batted her eyes at an increasingly frustrated Kikuchi. 

"_Quot annos nata es?_" Yoshikawa smiled up at Kanzaki, knowing - of course - that Kikuchi wanted him to phrase the question as if it were directed to a girl... Contrary to what Kanzaki might have been thinking, which both boys probably had an idea of, thanks to the playful and not to mention somewhat sinister grin on her face. 

"Working hard today?" Kanzaki strolled over to Yoshikawa and patted his head. 

Now, the boy had been genuinely happy to see Kanzaki just a few seconds ago, but in the span of that small, innocuous gesture, Yoshikawa managed to remember the bit of irrational displeasure he'd felt the day before when Kikuchi told him about their break-up. The very second her fingers lightly touched his hair, he couldn't help but snap, "I'm not Tomoko, you know; I'm not your pet!" 

Two pairs of eyes glanced at the shaggy-haired teen with considerable astonishment. 

Yoshikawa himself hadn't expected those words tumbling out of his mouth. "I'm... sorry." 

"No, don't- aww!" Kanzaki shook her head with seeming disappointment. With one sassy hand on a stuck-out hip, she gave Yoshikawa a reproachful look. "You ruined it! Just when you were about to get all manly." 

Some effort was exerted to not dwell on the "about to" part. Yoshikawa averted his eyes in an awkward combination of apologetic embarrassment and inexplicable irritation. "Yeah, well." 

"We're making progress, though. Yes, this certainly proves it. Want a treat?" 

"Um... I'll pass." 

"If you're done being an irrelevant distraction, Kanzaki..." Kikuchi began, recovering from the inital shock of having witnessed a Yoshikawa-outburst or tantrum or whatever it had been. 

"Right, may I know why everyone is so cranky?" Kanzaki sat herself beside Yoshikawa, but did not induce any more unexpected hissy fits. "I hate it when guys are so irritable and easy - just _begging_ to be pissed off, and yet girls are always being criticized for having PMS or what have you. What would your excuses be?" 

"His excuse is Latin. I'm always cranky," Kikuchi pointed out. 

"In that case, you're forgiven, Yoshikawa. And Kikuchi, honestly, you're too grumpy for someone who gets laid pretty often." 

"That was the most USELESS effing class EVER." Murai zipped inside the room, slamming the door shut behind him. He settled angrily in front of the TV set and turned it on, ignoring the people around him - annoyed, curious, and entertained at turns. 

"Welcome back, Murai," Yoshikawa greeted him. 

"Hey, Yoshikawa. Ice queen. Urumi." 

"How can you still be holding a grudge against me for not helping you?" Kikuchi muttered. His voice hardened as he told his roommates to "Get the hell out of here; go inside your rooms or something. Now. We're studying." 

"You're overworking him, Kikuchi-kun," Kanzaki informed her ex-boyfriend. "After all, isn't he - as the old song goes - still mending the pieces of his broken heart?" 

Murai's mood perked up a bit upon being reminded that misery existed outside his life. "You and Anko, right?" 

"To tell the truth, it was a strange one to digest, from the very beginning," Kanzaki said bluntly. 

"I couldn't imagine either of you chasing after each other," Murai agreed. "I mean, not that Anko isn't aggressive, but I can't picture her going after someone like you. I mean that in the kindest possible way." (Murai and Kanzaki had a number of good characteristics between the two of them... The ability to be tactful has yet to be included in that list.) "You know... Complete opposites and all." 

"The only way I see Yoshikawa propositioning her is through a stuttered pick-up line inspired by anime." In a falsetto parody of Yoshikawa's voice, Kikuchi gushed, "'Uehara-san, will you be the Asuka Langley to my Shinji Ikari?'" 

"...The sad thing is you were able to come up with that," Kanzaki commented knowledgeably. 

"I'm Shinji...?" Yoshikawa pouted, looking additionally unsettled by how Kikuchi perceived his voice. 

The strangest thing happened - an unconventional kind of fear seeped into Kanzaki's separately blue and brown eyes. The way her entire body froze indicated some sort of inner turmoil, until she finally snapped out of it and began to frantically dig into her pockets. She grabbed Yoshikawa by the wrist and led him to the cabinets that stored the cereals and the sugar and miscellaneous food items that required no refrigeration. 

"Give him back this instant! That one has to learn from me!" Kikuchi commanded the blonde walking off with his personal project. 

"I'm going to introduce him to the rules. Since he's practically here more often than _I_ am..." Kanzaki said. She opened one of the cabinets and started... scribbling on the inside using a permanent marker. She pocketed the marker and brought out a ballpen, then proceeded to write again. She smiled as she dotted a few I's and crossed some T's, nudging Yoshikawa towards the cabinet, to reveal an abused piece of paper taped to the inside. 

It read:

* * *

Household Laws

Rule #1 - Labels!

Rule #2 - Silence after 12:00 AM, and absolutely no barging into anyone else's room asking for homework or research information when it's his responsibility to find out for himself.  
(Beside it, in ballpoint scrawl was:) _I said I was sorry! -Murai_

Rule #3 - Should a guest be invited, one must inform the other inmates about it beforehand.  
_If I walk out naked one more time when Murai's mom comes over, she's liable to suspect something. -Kikuchi_  
_So am I. -Murai_  
_"Inmates"? Make us sound like prisoners, why don't you -Urumi_  
_Why the hell do you need to walk out of your room naked anyway? I mean, it wouldn't be so bad if it were Kanzaki..._  
_That's not happening soon, Murai, but I hope you liked the present I left in your bedroom -Urumi_  
_The next time inhouse revenge is called for, make sure that the actual execution of said retaliation will not procure the involvement of medical treatment. -Kikuchi_  
_Shouldn't that last comment be rule #4? -Murai_  
_I for one thought that it went without saying. -Kikuchi_  
_Duly noted -Urumi_

(The following rule had been blacked out, and all Yoshikawa could make out under the thick lines was "quietly." He concluded that it had something to do with Kikuchi and Kanzaki's relationship, judging from all the scribbled comments that followed it.) 

Rule #5 - (Marked simply, "READ." Followed by a tabular schedule of domestic duties.)

Rule #6 - If you come up short on cash at the end of the month, be prepared to do grocery duty for the entire year.

Rule #7 - If you're going to play flouncy-ass J-Pop, don't do it in full fucking volume!  
_It wasn't my fault, Tomoko was practising lip-synching -Urumi_  
_Isn't there a studio she can do that in? -Murai_  
_I'm just curious... If she's practising lip-synching, why does she have the volume on so loud? -Kikuchi_  
_Busted! -Murai_  
_DAMN IT YOU GUYS! If you're trying to drown out sounds or something, play some good music. -Murai_

new Rule #4 - We are not feeding one-night stands.  
_Why do you insist on bringing them here? That's what love hotels are for, you bastard... -Murai_

Rule #8 - No otaku-speak so long as we are under this roof or it's hell to pay.  
_Be good, Yoshikawa (heart) -Urumi_

* * *

"How does it feel to be integrated into cupboard culture?" Murai asked with a short chuckle, accompanied by the ever elegant snort. He and Kikuchi could guess what Kanzaki had just written, based on her previous unseemly experience involving Gundam afficionados and Onizuka's knack of coming up with stressful room assignments for his students. 

Yoshikawa felt, perhaps, more intimidated than he should have. "What qualfies as 'otaku-speak'?" 

"Oh, for..." Kikuchi could actually be described as huffy at this point. "Tell you what, if you speak in _Latin_, I guarantee you that we won't consider it otaku-speak. Okay? Okay. So, if you were a girl-" 

"I don't want to know," Murai decided, turning swiftly back to the television. 

"I was going to ask him to tell me how a girl would say 'I'm 17-years-old' in Latin but everyone is busy thinking I'm depraved or being jackasses who don't care whether or not they're interrupting people who are trying to study!" Kikuchi inhaled sharply through an upturned nose (following the direction of his upturned chin). He clutched Yoshikawa's arm and stormed off to his room. 

"You're bringing him to your room?" Kanzaki gasped extravagantly. 

Yoshikawa winced as Kikuchi's grip tightened. The shorter boy was tempted more and more each day to gain some weight just to rob people of the ability to drag him around as easily as they would a rag doll. 

"If he tries anything, we're one yell away, Noboru!" Kanzaki called after them helpfully, her voice dulling after Kikuchi closed the door behind them. 

"They drive me crazy. It frequently makes me wonder why I'm not a loner." Kikuchi glanced at Yoshikawa, and for no definite reason, the two of them laughed a little when their eyes met. "Sorry about the complaint, it was unnecessary." 

"That's a weird thing to apologize for," Yoshikawa said teasingly. "In any case, I know you like them both." 

"It must seem like someone complaining to a beggar about having his steak not cooked the way he wants it to be. Like someone complaining to an orphan about how his parents aren't perfect," Kikuchi said in his usual deadpan voice. "That's what me complaining to you about Murai and Kanzaki must be like. I know you. You think you're a loner, and you're probably subconsciously mad at me for not being grateful enough for having friends like ithem." 

Yoshikawa looked away, his heartbeat feeling like a flimsy movement in his chest, fluttering at the tenuously accurate statement. "...I'm not mad at you." 

"You know you're not alone, right?" Kikuchi looked at him, trying to read the thoughts behind his friend's wistful eyes. For some reason, it was important for him to get this straight with Yoshikawa, to remind him now and then... "In school, even when Onizuka's not there, do you know that you're not alone?" 

"Yeah." Yoshikawa made his lips smile. "I just get pulled back into this mindset, you know? I don't mean to, like, reduce everything everyone's done for me... like how you're helping me with my studies and all... I guess I've just felt so alone for such a long time, and when Onizuka-sensei kind of just brought me out of my shell like he did... it really meant a lot to me." 

"Yeah... I understand." Kikuchi gathered some handouts in his hand, ready to continue helping Yoshikawa with his academics. 

Yoshikawa, however, didn't share the same willingness. He snickered a bit. "We always end up being so serious when we're together. Um... Are we going again?" 

Kikuchi smirked a little. "Ideally." 

"Okay." Resigned, Yoshikawa slumped into Kikuchi's computer chair. He jumped up suddenly, not willing to let the bit of courage he was feeling go to waste. "It's just... Before that, um... Well, you told me about you and Kanzaki." 

"...Yes, I did." 

"I sort of want to tell you about... well, what Anko said..." 

Kikuchi was caught off-guard by the feeling of conceit rising within him as a result of Yoshikawa expressing his intent to open up. There was a certain kind of pride in having someone invest trust in you. _Especially someone like him..._ Kikuchi pried himself away from further mental gloating and focused on the matter at hand. "Alright. Go ahead." 

"Right." Some obvious stalling tactics were deployed, but all in all, Yoshikawa managed to let out a sufficiently detailed rant about what went wrong with him and his ex-sort-of-girlfriend. 

Kikuchi's intrigue morphed into comprehensive delibiration by the time Yoshikawa was at "...and she thinks I don't love her", around the time the smaller boy was concluding his long-winded, mostly incoherent speech. "She thinks you don't love her?" Kikuchi asked almost distantly. Yoshikawa knew that he wasn't really confirming what he'd just said, but prodding for the few more trivialities that Yoshikawa had left out. 

"Well... I mean, yeah. I mean, she knows I do love her." Yoshikawa hesitated again, but propelled onward. "She's insecure, though, because of the things we haven't done and how I'm mostly uncomfortable with all that. And regarding the 'Onizuka-sensei thing' again, she thinks... She thinks I'm too..." 

"Gay?" 

Yoshikawa made a face at the suddenness word. Even Anko hadn't said it, although it was heavily implied. Now that it was actually articulated, it seemed even more of an impending title to him. "It's such a crazy idea! I have no idea why she practically convinced herself of it. I mean, not to insult you or-or anyone else, but it... I really can't imagine... I mean, I _do_ like Onizuka-sensei." (Kikuchi was barely able to suppress a "Really? I couldn't tell." Sarcastic, of course.) "But even when I _tried_ to think about... doing things... It just really creeped me out. I don't mean to say that I think you're disgusting or anything, I just can't see myself with another guy. Even him. Or especially him. Doing..." 

"Things," they said together, with one feeling extremely self-conscious and the other feeling more than a little wry. 

Kikuchi nodded, a familiar air of wisdom hanging about him. "But you like him?" 

"I'm almost certain you know the answer to that." 

"Hm, good guess," Kikuchi said, dryly, but he continued without missing a beat. "And he's important to you." 

"Yeah." 

"And you'll concede that among every single person you've met, he's the one who fascinates you the most." 

"Well... I don't know." Yoshikawa felt his face grow warm. "I guess..." he admitted. 

"It's natural, Yoshikawa," Kikuchi declared. "It's very understandable for people to think homosexuality is disgusting. That's why I don't hate homophobes, generally speaking. Components of a society are programmed with particular beliefs and morals. In religion or biology, the union of man and woman is promoted because of the differentiation in genitalia, and the productivity thereof. Sure, when you look at it that way, it makes sense. But from a historical perspective, homosexual behavior isn't such a deviation. It certainly wasn't sparse in Greece. The concept of homosexuality being wrong is easily just another social construct, not a justified truism. To think love or pleasure is ruled upon whether or not you can get someone pregnant, that's a bit illogical. In my opinion, there isn't anything morally degenerate about sex itself, unless there's no fully aware mutual consent." 

Halfway through the gay lecture, the slightly nauseated look on Yoshikawa's face became more evident. (Kikuchi thought it was around the time he said "pleasure.") It made Kikuchi feel a bit guilty for trying to force the idea upon his classmate, so he tried to take back as much of his assertiveness as he could. "But, just because I do something doesn't make it right. I try to do the right things, usually based on a decent stringing of logic, but it doesn't mean my decisions are flawless." Kikuchi was rather stunned at how easily he could say these things to another person. But he wasn't too shocked that the other person happened to be Yoshikawa. 

"Even if you know entirely too much for a teenager?" Yoshikawa questioned him, shaking off the discomfort he felt due to Kikuchi - of all people - giving him a "birds and the bees" (birds and the birds?) talk. 

"Actually, I think knowing a lot of things makes it harder to believe in them." 

"But you believe everything you just told me." 

"Yes. Pretty much." 

Kikuchi dumped the handouts on Yoshikawa's lap, a reminder of the still unreviewed lessons that needed tending to. "Alright, alright," Yoshikawa surrendered with a small sigh. "You know, it's so hard to think of you as this... sexually active guy. What more _bi_sexually active, so to speak. You're... _Kikuchi_." 

"Right. Well, with you, I think I'd like to keep it that way." 

Yoshikawa was caught off-guard when he felt some relief wash over him thanks to that statement. But even more surprisingly, he felt a bit of something akin to distress as well. He assured himself that it was simply because Kikuchi made it sound like he was being rejected in a way, although that wasn't too consoling either. 


End file.
